When the kids are settled into a school routine, and I am too, I like to make homemade Christmas gifts. 🙂 I like to include at least one homemade item in the Christmas gifts for the family. So what to do this year? Here’s an idea for you that I did a couple of years ago. It was really easy, not too expensive, and very practical. Hot pads! Big ones! I bought one Christmas themed flannel “layer cake” for about $25 and I used our old jeans for the back. The pinwheel pattern was really easy too. And because I used Christmas fabric, I thought that some of the hot pad looked like Christmas candy.
I followed a tutorial from the Missouri Star Quilt Company to make the pinwheels quickly and easily except that I used the Layer Cake size pre-cut fabric rather than the Charm Pack size. You can see that I decided not to put a separate border on them, but rather to just “flip and stitch” like you would do for a pillow. The potholder was already quite big and I didn’t want to go find more fabric to add, nor did I want to add to the size. You can also see from the pictures that I kept the seam in our jeans just because I thought it looked cool. I had to be careful sewing through that (and a few needles gave their all for the project), but it was worth it. I decided to add a little loop so it could be hung up if needed. Just stitch in the ditch quilting was all that was needed, and the pattern turned out great on the back as well.
My mom keeps hers on her table always. At Christmas time the pinwheel pattern is face up, and the rest of the year, she keeps the jean side facing up. I wish I would have made some for myself!
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